After reading your script etc. I've warmed to your story idea much more so than when we were talking yesterday. The laboratory does still feel tacked on to the much more vivid circus setting, but with a little bit more work - and a slight alteration of Honkers' character, you could make it work much harder. Obviously you have clown firemen, and clown police, so why not a 'clown scientist' - so, as part of the clown routine, there would be lots of bottles and tubes etc. Perhaps you should consider modeling your clown's appearance on Einstein - to make more of the mad scientist act:
It just seems, if you're going to equate the lab with the circus act, you need to do so more boldly to 'cover the cracks' a little!
The other issue I have is with the ending; why does the clownfish burn down the tent etc. and alienate his audience, when he needs the audience to experience his superiority over Honkers? It just seems a bit extreme? The other slight issue is one of loyalties: with whom is the audience identifying? Where are our sympathies? As I read, my sympathies were with the clown - and this is because you haven't established the unfairness of their relationship in Act 1. The audience doesn't know that the clownfish has a grudge. It seems to me that you might need to make the clown more villainous and the clownfish more likeable - or do it the otherway - make the clownfish less likeable - and simply make the joke that the clownfish is always upstaging the clown. Their relationship dynamic needs to be more clearly signalled somehow.
Also - at the end of the day, the clownfish is still in its bowl - still subordinate, still the supporting act; the fact that we just see the fish smiling seems weak to me - not triumphant enough. Is there anything you can do to make your ending punchier? For example, it might be possible to 'teach the clownfish a lesson' at the end - that somehow, everything finally backfires - or, as in Tom and Jerry, we realise that they're friends after all. You just need.... something; a parting shot!
2 comments:
Interim Online Review 15/02/2011
Hey Mike,
After reading your script etc. I've warmed to your story idea much more so than when we were talking yesterday. The laboratory does still feel tacked on to the much more vivid circus setting, but with a little bit more work - and a slight alteration of Honkers' character, you could make it work much harder. Obviously you have clown firemen, and clown police, so why not a 'clown scientist' - so, as part of the clown routine, there would be lots of bottles and tubes etc. Perhaps you should consider modeling your clown's appearance on Einstein - to make more of the mad scientist act:
http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/8500/Einstein-Clown-8835.jpg
It just seems, if you're going to equate the lab with the circus act, you need to do so more boldly to 'cover the cracks' a little!
The other issue I have is with the ending; why does the clownfish burn down the tent etc. and alienate his audience, when he needs the audience to experience his superiority over Honkers? It just seems a bit extreme? The other slight issue is one of loyalties: with whom is the audience identifying? Where are our sympathies? As I read, my sympathies were with the clown - and this is because you haven't established the unfairness of their relationship in Act 1. The audience doesn't know that the clownfish has a grudge. It seems to me that you might need to make the clown more villainous and the clownfish more likeable - or do it the otherway - make the clownfish less likeable - and simply make the joke that the clownfish is always upstaging the clown. Their relationship dynamic needs to be more clearly signalled somehow.
Also - at the end of the day, the clownfish is still in its bowl - still subordinate, still the supporting act; the fact that we just see the fish smiling seems weak to me - not triumphant enough. Is there anything you can do to make your ending punchier? For example, it might be possible to 'teach the clownfish a lesson' at the end - that somehow, everything finally backfires - or, as in Tom and Jerry, we realise that they're friends after all. You just need.... something; a parting shot!
... no essay introduction? Get something on here asap '@ Phil'
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